ESPN accidentally leaked the women's NCAA tournament bracket hours early
The women’s NCAA tournament Selection Show was scheduled to air Monday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN, but thanks to an apparent graphic error, this year’s tournament field was unveiled hours ahead of schedule.
College basketball fans noticed that the women’s tournament matchups were being displayed during a Dick Vitale appearance on ESPNU’s Bracketology special. Matchups like Kentucky vs. Princeton and Arizona State vs. UCF were appearing on the screen with region locations.
It continued until the entire tournament bracket had been revealed. If the bracket was correct, this was a major mistake from ESPN.
Twitter users eventually pieced the entire bracket together based off the ESPNU graphics. The tournament should look something like this.
When the NCAA women’s hoops Twitter account announced that the Selection Show had been moved up to 5 p.m. ET, fans were quick to come in with jokes.
That’s a bummer for the teams that organized gatherings to watch the selection broadcast, but at least ESPN didn’t wait two extra hours when the information was already out there.
That would have been especially awkward given the circumstances. ESPN said in a statement that it will investigate how the error happened.